forever is composed of nows
by despicably-you
Summary: he's wandered the earth for eons, but she always finds her way to him - even if just for a moment.
1. Chapter 1

_i. the nile - 3000 BC_

the heat pulls the sweat through his pores as he staggers across the sand. it's too hot, even for him. in all his hundreds of thousands of lifetimes he has never experienced this heat, this thirst. in the distance the air shimmers with something like a promise, and his feet pull his unwilling body further across the dunes.

the hours pass. he keeps walking.

he reaches the water, and thanks every god he's ever cursed as he splashes his face, his arms, hell he wades into the lapping waves and submerges himself in the liquid. he drinks, and he thinks he's never felt more alive until he sees _her_.

she's a shock to his system. in the murky water all he sees is a flash of white and at first he thinks a crocodile is attacking him before he realizes the brush of her floating hair against his skin isn't an assault, it's a blessing. he jerks above the water level again and her head pops out across from him. he realizes that he was so fixated on the gift of water that he hadn't even taken notice of the other gift the gods have thrust upon him.

she smiles. "hello," she laughs, and her smile is like the sun. he blinks, and can't reply.

"i don't believe we've met," she laughs some more, and he dares a smile. "my name is rey."

"…poe."

her eyes crinkle and his chest tightens with something he hasn't felt in a thousand ages.

"it's a pleasure to meet you poe. might i inquire as to how you got past my guards?"

he's confused. "guards?"

"yes, the guards stationed at the river to protect my decency while i bathe."

it's with a flash that he realizes she's naked. it's with another flash that he realizes she's laughing at him with her eyes. he stammers something unintelligible and then she laughs at him with her mouth, too.

"don't worry yourself, poe. the waters quite dark enough that my privacy is quite guarded."

he dares another smile, and his next words are less of a stammer and more of a fully formed sentence.

"i am sorry, i truly didn't mean to intrude. it's just, i— i saw the water and…" he trails off.

rey smiles at him again, and he realizes he's been holding his breath waiting for it.

"well, i must say, although i _certainly_ don't mind your presence in my bath, my guards might feel differently. it would be a shame if they were to run someone like you through. i suggest you swim very far downriver before resurfacing." she winks at him.

he lets out a breath of laughter, but its tinged with disappointment. he does as she says though, her words being the only thing that registers with his addled mind. he thinks that in his current state: exhausted, dehydrated, and quite possibly smitten, he'd walk off a cliff if she asked him to.

she brushes his leg with hers as he swims by and he thinks he might just have a heart attack. he risks poking his head above the surface once more, and asks, "can i see you again?"

this time her smile is coupled with a blush as she nods. "i'll meet you in the market at sundown."

his heart just might beat out of his chest when he swims down the river.

he waits for her in the market at sundown. she doesn't come.


	2. Chapter 2

_ii. athens - 432 BC_

it's more than two and a half thousand years before he sees her again. he had thought about her for days until he heard that the princess rey had been taken by a wasting disease. he leaves egypt.

he's in greece now, and a successful senator. they're consecrating the parthenon - rebuilt after the persians attacked. he'd fought in the war, but unlike so many others, he made it back. he almost feels guilty - his inability to die and thus fear death brings him glory while those young men who are truly brave in the face of death fall at his side.

he tries not to think about it.

he finds that very simple to do when sees a pair of eyes he hasn't seen in millennia. " _rey"_ he breathes. she's a part of the panathenaic procession, bringing a peplos to the cult statue of athena.

vaguely, he thinks that she should be the one being worshipped, but he quickly curbs his blasphemy and begs forgiveness of the gods. he doesn't want to anger them - they've brought her back to him and he doesn't think he could survive them taking her away again.

 _"immortals are made of stone,"_ the gods had whispered to him when they placed him upon this earth, but he feels more like water when he watches her.

she's focused on her task, solemnly placing one foot in front of the other, clad in a white tunic that matches that of the other _ergastines_ \- the women who create the peplos for athena's cult statue - in the line.

he takes a breath after holding it for far too long. is he going crazy? he remembers her clearly, from the river. he knew she wasn't another immortal - he would have known. all the immortal siblings know each other intimately.

he's near the end of the procession - a celebrated warrior in a place of honor. he watches her walk the whole way, puzzling through the mystery of her existence in his mind.

when she meets his eyes without recognition, he forces his disappointment deep into his body.

still, he doesn't take his eyes off her form, even when her eyes glide easily past him.

after the ceremony, he follows the white of her tunic through the gray of the crowd. the people make way for her - an ergastine is to be respected.

he doesn't approach her - what would he say - and soon he loses her trail in the city.

at the festival that evening, he dances and drinks and feasts and before he knows it her face appears in front of his. her smile blesses his eyes and suddenly he feels like he's back in the river - drowning in her image. he can't breathe.

she holds out her hand. his eyes widen and his heart soars and he takes her hand.

the music swells as they dance around the square, and his head is spinning from the wine and the impossible girl in front of him.

"what's your name?" this time, he speaks first. he's hesitant, desperately hoping for a certain answer, and yet being utterly afraid to have confirmed what he already knows.

she beams back at him. "my name is rey, good sir."

he shouldn't be surprised - he knew it was her - but to hear that same name pass through those same lips still floors him.

like a prayer, he repeats it back to her. when she asks his name, he finds himself mutely staring at the way a few tendrils of hair have escaped her elaborate up do. when she repeats her question, he has to shake himself out of something like a trance, and he curses his gods for not lending him dignity along with immortality.

"poe." he finally manages to utter his response.

when she repeats it back to him, he nearly shudders with delight.

when the music fades and the dance is done, he nearly weeps for fear of losing her to the crowd again, but her slender form stays close to his. he thanks every god he's ever heard of in all his lifetimes for this blessing.

they talk for hours - he learns that she's returned the city only recently, since the ergastines are kept hidden away during the year.

he tells her that he's a soldier, that he lived in the country side. he doesn't mention his memories of her sun kissed skin and beaming smile that have haunted him all day.

the sun sets behind the acropolis, and night washes over the city. the flickering light of the torches throughout the festival illuminate her features, and he swears that she's _glowing_.

he's immortal, but when she tells him that the next day the ergastines must return to the hidden temple for the year, he is absolutely certain that he is being killed.

before he can stop himself, before propriety can stop him, he takes her by the shoulders and pleads, "can i see you again? just once. please."

a shy smile overtakes rey's delicate features. "meet me tomorrow at dawn. here."

when she walks towards him through the morning mist only hours later, her tunic swinging, he prays to everything and everyone that he will see her again. when she walks she gives him a shy kiss on the cheek that nearly stops his heart (a heart that hasn't stopped in ages).

weeks later, when he hears the news that the temple of the ergastines burned to the ground he curses everything he's ever known. he leaves athens.


	3. Chapter 3

_iii. rome - 50 AD_

poe is staring at the stars the next time he sees her. he's standing in the forum, scribbling notes and watching the heavens when she wafts by. seeing her is like a breath of fresh air where he's drowning at the same time. he's spent the last five hundred years searching for her in every face that passed by. she burns to bright for his world, he thinks, for the gods to let her exist for more than a moment at a time. he wishes the gods would let him burn with her.

she doesn't take notice of him yet, and he is thankful for this small kindness. this way, he can lose himself in the way the starlight sprinkles off the freckles on her nose, and the way her eyes flash in the torchlight. he starts to convince himself that she is a star sent from the heavens purely there to torture him, taunt him, drive him mad.

without meaning to, he takes a step towards the colonnade where she is standing. at the noise she starts, and turns to face him.

for a moment he dares to pray that she recognize him. she doesn't and he curses the gods for their cruelty at the same time as he thanks for sending her back to him.

her eyes flash with something akin to suspicion, and he holds his hands out placatingly.

he swears that the third time is the charm, and he will be charming and dignified this time around. he opens his mouth to speak to her and finds that words fail him.

she speaks, and in a cautious tone says, "forgive me, my lord, but do we know each other?"

of course she has to ask _that_ question, he thinks bitterly. the one question he desperately wants to answer yet could not in all his lifetimes string together the words to explain that _yes_ , they do know each other. by some inexplicable design of fate her life is tied to his - destined to make his existence brighter for a moment and to leave it darker when she leaves.

"no," he says, "we don't know each other. forgive me, my lady." he tries to turn to leave, but his body defies him and he stays. "my name is poe." he can't meet her eyes, he doesn't think he can bear it if she doesn't smile. he looks at the stars instead, and finds them dimmer when she's there.

he can hear the smile in her voice when she replies that her name is rey and that it is a pleasure to meet him.

 _yes, a pleasure_ , he thinks, the thought acerbic in his mind. _meeting you is the sweetest pleasure and the most odious curse._

he does not say that. instead he asks what she's doing by herself so late at night.

"i might ask you the same question."

his heart swells to hear her voice. "you make a fair point my lady. i am simply observing the stars."

she gasps with delight. "are you a philosopher?"

he smiles at her smile when he says, "no, just a student."

he remembers listening, stricken, to the philosopher lecturing on the notion of intertwined souls. an individual and their perfect mate, destined to find each other across the bounds of time and earth. he's been studying ever since - reading treatises and scrolls, anything. desperate for information, for a reason as to _why_ and _how_ this gift of a girl is given and taken away from him.

tonight, poe is outside to study the heavens when he realizes that heaven is standing in front of him. he wonders if plato would stand by his theory of ideal forms if he met rey.

rey's smile widens as she tells him of her love of reading, and it widens further when he offers to bring her a treatise on astronomy the next morning. as she thanks him, he has to stop himself from confessing that he would do anything just to see her again.

"will you meet me here tomorrow at noon?" he dares to breathe the words.

when she acquiesces, his smile soars to match her ever present one.

poe arrives an hour early the next morning, frantically trying to calm his pounding heart. what if she does not come? what if the gods have stolen her from the earth again?

in all his years, he has never been more frightened than when she is ten minutes late.

and in all his years, he has never been more relieved when he spies her face bobbing through the crowd. she floats into his vision like a river through the desert.

he thinks that if all else perished and she remained he would continue to thank the gods for each time he sees her face. but in the time between their meetings, the universe is stranger to him each day he goes without her.

rey spies the scroll he clutches in his hands. little does she know he holds it to hide the shaking of his hands. she greets him warmly, and it softens him.

she unfurls the scroll gingerly, and he finds himself wishing that she held his hand the way she holds the scroll.

he shoves that thought to the depths of his traitorous mind.

rey's eyes flit along the page, her mind rapt and her mouth parted in delight. poe watches her eyes the way he watched the stars last night and all the nights he waits for her. _the stars pale in comparison_.

"i can bring you another one." at this point, he'd steal the library of alexandria if it means that he will see her again.

she promises to meet him again the next day.

if she comes, it will be the first time he's seen her thrice.

he carries a scroll on geometry - a study in the extent of perfection, balance, order, and harmony. he pities the poor philosopher who wrote it without realizing that the gods have sent their own treatise on perfection to bless the earth.

he thinks he might write a treatise on cruelty and torture - on how to perfectly wound someone by letting them smell ambrosia then ripping it away. but when rey walks through the crowd for the third time and his eyes fall upon her for the sixth time in his eternal life, poe might just write about joy.

the gods give him a week, this time. for one glorious, heavenly week, rey appears to him each day at noon.

on the eighth day, it seems his brief respite is not to last.

for another week, poe waits in the forum. at night he sees the stars are weeping.

when he hears the dirges sound, he knows.

poe leaves rome.


End file.
